Corsair Goes 80 Plus Platinum with HXi Series Power Supplies

High wattage meets high efficiency

You don't want to match your high-end system build with a wimpy or generic power supply, trust us on this one. We've seen things, man -- things we can't ever forget (like smoke emitting from our rig). That's why we're a little excited to see Corsair announce its new HXi Series of power supplies with 80 Plus Platinum certification, which is only achieved when reaching greater than 92 percent energy efficiency.

The HXi Series is available in 750W, 850W, and 1,000W models, each of which offer fully modular cables, near-silent operation, Japanese electrolytic capacitors, and Corsair software monitoring and customization.

"When we launched the first PSUs in 2006, the HX Series redefined what a PC PSU should be, raising the bar for PSU quality and performance and making them a long-trusted favorite of PC enthusiasts," said Aaron Neal, product manager of PSUs at Corsair. "The new HXi PSUs build on that legacy with upgraded efficiency, fully modular cables, software monitoring, and some of the best voltage regulation, noise, and ripple specs in their class."

For those who take PSUs seriously, the Corsair Link software has your name written all over it. The software serves up real-time temperature, power usage, efficiency monitoring, and selectable single/multi-rail mode from the desktop.

Corsair's HXi Series is backed by a 7-year warranty and will be available in August for $170 (HX750i), $190 (HX850i), and $230 (HX1000i).

Comments

Id like Corsair to start figuring out whats killing off their Premium AX series PSUs and most of their others.

Ive had a cx600 for a while now with no issues, but im upgrading to a 780ti and I wanted more room for growth so I started looking at 750-850w PSU's. I wanted to stick with corsair, but im not paying near $200 for a power supply that has so many failures. I did some research and ended up with an EVGA SuperNOVA G2 750W thats basically a Super Flower Leadex in disguise. Supposedly this is one of the best PSU's to grab at the moment and at $119 with a 10 year warranty, I couldnt pass it up.

I would like to know why Corsair quality has suffered lately too. I have a TX850W that has been running flawlessly for 5 years. Since I know it's days are probably numbered I have been reading up on Corsair and others. Corsair seems to have a high failure rate for about the past year or so. Not sure what I will replace mine with. Almost afraid to buy a Corsair from what I am reading on the net as well as Corsiar's own support forum.

I bought a Corsair K90 keyboard and had nothing but trouble with the keys. The key switches were fine as I swapped them around and they all worked fine in their new positions. I guess soldering is to blame. Sent it out for warranty replacement after two more keys were acting up. Got a K95 in the meantime and so far it is working well. Corsair even asked me for the LOT number in the RMA so it must be they had a bad batch of keyboards. Probably the same with the power supplies.

I have been buying only Corsair power supplies lately (but not in the last year tho). I have 5 or 6 of them. The voltages have been completely consistent and in spec over any load I have thrown at them. None so far have been completely modular.

Part of the inflated price and sales pitch is the Corsair software monitoring suite. Can MPC review this software too along with the PSU? Platinum certified PSUs are quite impressive, and it makes sense they will carry a premium price tag.

Are all of them as physically long as the 1000-watt unit pictured (it looks like a longer unit but could be a crop/stretch issue)? Are the 750 and 850 units standard PSU length? With all the smaller systems floating around this could be good information to begin paying attention to.

These ARE pricey. I buy the cheaper versions of Corsair power supplies. As for voltage monitoring, my ASUS board does that fine. You are right, they look elongated. As for cases, I gave up on squashing everything into a mid tower so the bigger the better. Check Corsair's site as I looked at their new cases coming out and they had specs for them. Not that either one of us is going to buy a $170 750W power supply, heh.

Go to any shabby computer trade show. They still sell $200 PC with a beige box, a 250 watt power supply, a Pentium CPU, 100MB hard drive, and 2 GB of DDR2 memory. For an extra $5, you can get a floppy drive.